Page:Harmonium - Wallace Stevens.djvu/27

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IIIIs it for nothing, then, that old ChineseSat tittivating by their mountain poolsOr in the Yangste studied out their beards?I shall not play the flat historic scale.You know how Utamaro's beauties soughtThe end of love in their all-speaking braids.You know the mountainous coiffures of Bath.Alas! Have all the barbers lived in vainThat not one curl in nature has survived?Why, without pity on these studious ghosts,Do you come dripping in your hair from sleep?
IVThis luscious and impeccable fruit of lifeFalls, it appears, of its own weight to earth.When you were Eve, its acrid juice was sweet,Untasted, in its heavenly, orchard air.An apple serves as well as any skullTo be the book in which to read a round,And is as excellent, in that it is composedOf what, like skulls, comes rotting back to ground.But it excels in this, that as the fruitOf love, it is a book too mad to readBefore one merely reads to pass the time.
VIn the high west there burns a furious star.It is for fiery boys that star was setAnd for sweet-smelling virgins close to them.The measure of the intensity of love

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